Media Storm - The money taboo: Who profits from our silence?

Episode Date: October 22, 2026

Care about independent and ethical news? Support Media Storm on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Surveys show most of us think we understand money, but far fewer can explain basic financial terms. Meanwhile, £1.28 billion was stolen through payment fraud last year, around £24 billion in benefits goes unclaimed every year, and MPs say a generation of students were mis-sold their loans. Into that gap have stepped finfluencers, manosphere “hustle” gurus (yes, Andrew Tate) and increasingly sophisticated AI scammers. At the root of this is a cultural taboo: don’t talk about money, don’t tell colleagues your salary. Half of Britons say talking about money feels rude or taboo. But that silence isn’t neutral. It helps unequal pay employers, lenders, scammers and abusers. With the Autumn Budget days away and money pages full of tax avoidance rather than debt avoidance, Mathilda and Helena ask: whose money worries does our media actually serve? And who’s deliberately kept out of understanding money? Helena and Mathilda are joined by Sammie Ellard-King, the founder of Up The Gains, host of The Money Gains Podcast and Money Content Creator of the Year 2024. He left university £24,000 in debt and kept it secret, then built one of the UK’s best-known personal finance brands. Plus, Harleen Nottay: a broadcaster and fraud investigator. She reports on BBC One’s Scam Interceptors and co-hosts the Scam Clinic podcast. Her Channel 4 documentary, The £12 Million Rental Scam, was nominated for Best Investigation at the Asian Media Awards. Support and resources: Debt advice: StepChange or Citizens Advice Surviving Economic Abuse National Domestic Abuse Helpline (Refuge): 0808 2000 247, free and 24/7 Scams: if you think you’ve been scammed, call your bank on the number on the back of your card, then report it to Action Fraud Check what you’re entitled to: free benefits calculators from Policy in Practice or Turn2us Free, impartial money guidance: MoneyHelper This episode is hosted and produced by Mathilda Mallinson (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@mathildamall⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠) and Helena Wadia (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@helenawadia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠)  It was edited by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Christy Callaway-Gale⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The music is by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @soundofsamfire⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠@mediastormpod⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Wild Horse Nine, only in theaters November 6th. Earning rave reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival, don't miss this wildly entertaining movie that critics are calling easily one of the best films of the year. Starring John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Bouchemy, Parker Posey, and Tom Waits, and written and directed by Academy Award winner Martin McDonough. See Wild Horse Nine, only in theaters, November 6th. This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snows. Back to school season can be tough on parents, but choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be.

Stock up on Welch's fruit snacks, made with real whole fruit for a mouth-watering experience the whole family can enjoy. It's a snack kids already love and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's fruit snacks. This episode is brought to you in partnership with Open Britain. A grassroots campaign group making democracy work for everyone, not just the rich and powerful. Hi, Matilda. What are we talking about today? Hi, Helena. Quick question before I tell you. How much money is in your current account right now? A bit of an intense question, moving swiftly along.

Okay, try this. Would you rather show me your bank balance or your phone's screen time report? Oh no. I mean, they're both. horrifying in different ways, but screen time, I'd rather you knew I spent four hours a day on Instagram than you knew what was in my account. Or maybe not just you, but everybody who listens to media storm. And you're not alone with that, right? One of today's guests ran a survey this year and 70% of people said exactly the same thing. They'd rather show people their screen time than their bank balance. So that's today's topic, money, and why we find it so hard to talk about. It's so true. I'd probably talk about my sex life on Media Storm before I talk about my salary.

And you're in good company, research by Barclays, about people talking about their sex life on Media Storm, incidentally, found exactly the same thing. No, research on Barclays this spring found that half of British adults say talking about money feels rude or taboo. A third say it makes them comfortable and nearly three in ten avoid talking about money even when they know it would help them. Among Gen Z, that's four in ten. So the taboo is getting stronger over time. Okay. I mean, it doesn't surprise me. Like, is that actually a problem? Isn't it just a bit British? We don't talk about our feelings either. Well, that's the framing we usually get. Awkward Brits, stiff up a lip. But silence isn't neutral, not when it comes to money. Think

about who gains when we don't talk about pay. I have a story here and I'm going to have to think about how to frame this in a way that protects everyone's anonymity. But at a former workplace, there was a bit of an internal... Already that doesn't protect anybody's anonymity. There was a bit of an internal data leak. Exclusively, it turned out to me. So this former workplace was hemorrhaging money and laying off massive numbers of its start. And so it sent round redundancy packages to everybody. But it accidentally sent me every single person's redundancy package. And what that meant was I could see everybody's salaries.

And that was shockingly eye-opening because what was very hard to immediately miss was, A, a pretty bad gender pay gap. And B, an absolutely app app. race pay gap. Bear in mind, this is not a workplace in which there were an abundant number of racial minorities. But it left me with a moral dilemma because there was one black woman who was being paid significantly less than her counterparts. And I was then left to ponder whether I should tell her this. And I was discussing it with some people around me. My mum, right? My mum, right? My mum, mom said, oh my God, it's so inappropriate to discuss salaries. That's just not something that you can broach, right? Which is very, very ingrained, especially in the previous generation,

and handed down to us as well. I talked to Helena, I think about it as well. And ultimately, I did decide to tell this person. And one of the reasons why I ultimately decided to do this is because there were so few minorities at this workplace, they would often, you know, sort of wheel this person out as the face of diversity in the workplace. But at the same time, they were clearly actively exploiting the fact that she came from a minority background in order to lock her into a chronically underpaid income bracket. And when I did tell this person, they were actually really appreciative because they had been repeatedly gasslit by the company while pushing for a pay rise. And it was only now due to a data leak that they had the information they needed to

actually trust their instincts and demand fair pay. So this conspiracy of silence around salaries empowers corporations over people, employers over employees. And it's the same for other issues to do with money. Think about who gains when we're too embarrassed to admit we're in debt. Lenders and scammers who rely on victims being too ashamed to report. And think about who gains when one partner in a relationship controls all the money and the other is too ashamed or culturally ingrained not to ask questions. Abusers. Yes. So the taboo isn't just awkward. It's useful to the wrong people. Exactly. And it's a class issue as well. If your parents talk about mortgages and pensions and ices over dinner, you absorb the knowledge without even trying.

If they don't talk about that stuff, you're kind of on your own. Yeah, and let's be honest, most of us didn't get that at school. Right? Financial education has technically been compulsory in secondary school citizenship lessons since 2014, i.e. after you and I left school, that's why we don't really remember getting anything. But even now, according to one estimate, only a third of children remember learning about money at school. Here's the paradox I want to start with. Market research firm Mintel found this year that 70% of UK consumers feel positive

about their financial knowledge, 70% and yet only 19% could actually confidently explain common financial terms when tested. So most of us think we know what we're doing when actually most of us don't. Yeah, and that is the confidence gap. And it's a costly one because that is where scammers get in. Last year, criminals stole 1.28 billion pounds

from people in the UK through payment fraud, according to the banking body UK finance. Losses to investment scams went up 40% in a single year to a record high. Meanwhile, an estimated £24 billion in benefits and support goes unclaimed every year by people who are actually entitled to it. The reasons, complexity, not knowing it exists, also stigma. Which is a funny thing because the headlines we get are always about benefit fraud, never about benefit underclaiming.

Exactly. And that's one of the things we'll look at today. And then there's the debt. A whole generation was sold without understanding the terms. Or that the terms they agreed to could be changed at any government's whim. Helena, you went to uni. Do you know what your student loan actually costs you? No.

Like mostly it's been something I've just completely ignored over the years. I know it's building and building because I've never really made enough in journalism to pay it off. So I've just left it there. But, you know, yeah, I know it's definitely over 20K. Well, this July, the Treasury Committee concluded that plan to student loans taken out by around 5 million people in England and Wales between 2012 and 23 were effectively misssold, promoted to students or buyers like a phone number. contract or a trip to the cinema, but then the government changed the terms after people were locked in. Wait, what? How is it not illegal to do that? Well, it normally is, right? For most companies selling products, that is illegal. But the government exempted its own loans from

consumer protection law. So students have no legal recourse. That is outrageous. Now I want to talk about money. Good. And why did you decide that? that we're talking about it now. We're doing this episode now. Well, a few reasons. Firstly, there's a budget next week on the 28th of October. John Healy delivers his first budget as Chancellor in Andy Burnham's government. So you're about to be flooded with a lot of money coverage. Inheritance tax. It's always about inheritance tax. So you've seen the pre-budget headlines. Yes, inheritance tax, wealth tax. These may be valid debates, but they address the concerns of people who have wealth to protect.

What you'll hear a lot less about, to varying extent, depending which media you read, is the student loan freeze or the millions of people struggling with bills. There's a class bias in media money coverage that we are going to dig into. Secondly, the scam economy is exploding right now, and we all know that because we have all been scammed

or attempted to be scammed. And it's changing shape, it's getting scary. This summer, deep fake videos of, Nigel Farage brawling with the governor of the Bank of England went viral on X, and they were linked to investment scam adverts. Martin Lewis's face has been used in fake ads. So often he's practically the mascot of AI fraud. And a fake Guardian article about a Laura Kunsberg BBC interview

with a rogue investor about his secret investment scheme was so convincing that my husband sent it to me. Wow, I've seen those two. They are scarily good now. Yeah. And also, there's Finfluences that I want to talk about today. Back in April, the Financial Conduct Authority, the city watchdog, led 17 regulators around the world in a crackdown on illegal financial promotion on social media. In one sweep in the UK, it found over 1,200 illegal financial adverts reaching more than 2 million accounts. Let's do some quick definitions. What is a finfluencer? A finfluencer, which I also didn't know the word for before I started researching this episode,

is a social media creator who talks about money, finance, budgeting, investment, side hustles, crypto, some are brilliant, some are even qualified. Many are neither. And crucially, many are paid by the products they promote to earn a commission when you, you sign up? Right. Fewer than one in ten people in the UK get regulated financial advice. That's personal advice from someone authorised by the FCA. It also means that they're legally responsible if they give you wrong advice. The rest of us probably rely on internet searches. One in five of us rely on social media for the information that we use to make key financial decisions. So a fifth of us are getting our money advice from TikTok.

Pretty much. Two more terms to get our head around quickly before we start the episode. APP fraud or authorised push payment fraud is when you're tricked into sending money yourself, say, to a fake landlord or a fake investment. That's now the most common way people lose money to scans. That was APP fraud. And economic abuse is another term, we'll discuss. This is when a partner or a family.

member controls someone's access to money as a form of coercive control. It's been recognised in law as a form of domestic abuse since 2021. And this summer, the charity surviving economic abuse found that more than a third of young women aged 16 to 24 had experienced it from a partner in the last year. A third that is staggering. That was my reaction as well. And almost none of this makes the money pages. So this is a story about who gets to understand money and who gets kept out. That's exactly it. And there are two kinds of people who've been filling the gap.

Our schools and our newspapers leave behind. Finfluences and scammers. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, which is why we've got one of each on today's episode. What? I'm joking. We have a fit fluencer and a scam investigator. Okay, few.

I know we like to talk to the missing voices in the media, but I feel like talking to a scammer is taking it one step too far. We'll ask our guests, why is money still one of Britain's last great taboos? And who benefits from the silence? Is financial literacy the answer? Or does it blame individuals for a system that stacks against them? When everyone online is selling something, who can we actually trust with our money? And whose money worries does our media really serve?

I was scared too when I first started investing. If you can't make 400 grand, I don't even know how you think you're a decent human being. When it comes to benefits, it is out of control. Be blunt, you're being mugged off. Nobody will ever pay inheritance tax on their family home. Welcome to Media Storm, the news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Helena Wadia. And I'm Matilda Mallinson.

This week's Media Storm, the money taboo. Who profits from our silence? Welcome to Media Storm. Our first guest left university $24,000 in debt and kept it secret from everyone around him until one night on a beach in Vietnam, he finally told a friend. He cleared it and went on to build one of the UK's best-known personal finance brands, up the Gaines, along with the Money Gains podcast and the Gaines app. He was named Money Content Creator of the Year in 2020.

and campaigns for proper financial education in schools. Welcome to Media Storm, Sammy Ellard King. Thank you for having me. It's good to be here. Our second guest is a broadcaster and investigative reporter who has spent years inside the world of fraud. She's a reporter on BBC One's BAFTA-winning scam interceptors, co-hosts the Scam Clinic podcast, and hosts the Everyday Hustle on BBC Asia Network.

Her Channel 4 documentary, The 12-million-pound Rental, scam confronted the criminals behind fake property listings and tested whether Facebook was doing enough to stop them. It was nominated for Best Investigation at the Asian Media Awards. A very warm welcome to Media Storm, Halene Notte. Thank you so much for having me. We're going to start with the money taboo, why we don't talk about money and what that costs. After the break, we'll get into influencers, scams and the Manosphere and what the media could do to help us better. Sammy, let's start with you. Take us back to that beach in Vietnam. You were 25, you were 24 grand in debt, and you hadn't told anyone. Why not? And what did that secrecy feel like?

I think a lot of it is largely shame and embarrassment. I think a lot of people feel that when they're in debt and it can kind of consume you with my situation. And this I've come to realize is a situation for a lot of young people and equally as well, any ages, is that a lot of debt is used to fund performance and social status and looking like I'm here, look at me, I have the X, Y, and Z latest thing. And you see it every car park you drive into, there's 25 plates everywhere, right? It becomes a performance. And that can lead over and bleed over into credit in a lot of cases. And in my case, it certainly was, I've come to realize that, you know, I was peacocking, in every single turn, spending £600 on a jacket with nothing to show for it other than a credit

card bill. And I was compartmentalising it as I was building it. So I was like, oh, it's a later thing. I was young, right? I was like, whatever, I'll be fine. I'll figure out a way of getting out of it. But the thing is with dealt, you get a flick switch moment and then you start your journey to get yourself out of it. It takes a long time. And there's a lot of battling with yourself and you grow as a human as you go, but you start learning. And it does take a catalyst moment, but then after that it's a bit of a journey. Thank you so much. And Harleen, you've met hundreds of people who have been scammed through the work that you do. In your experience, how does shame around money play into fraud? And where does that shame come from? Yeah, unfortunately, shame plays massively into

fraud. And you know, the problem is that scammers know this. as well, and they abuse it. You know, for decades, fraud has been viewed as primarily a financial crime, and the reality is, is that's just not the case. That perspective only really captures a part of the picture behind every fraudulent transaction

is a victim whose experience can extend far beyond any financial loss, really. So that impact of fraud can impact somebody for months, even years and studies have found that the victims of fraud will experience things like anxiety, depression, shame as we're speaking about, self-blame and they have a tangible reduced quality of life. Now I do think that that shame comes from around sort of societal expectations, really. We don't view fraud in the same way we view other types of crime. If you were, say, for example, to be mugged walking down the street, you wouldn't blame your

for being mugged, you would recognise that it is a crime and somebody targeted you. And I think that sort of societal expectation of fraud being somehow our own fault, that we've somehow been sort of trapped into it, really plays massively into this sort of shame that people feel. And Sammy, you've spoken about growing up without really being taught the value of a pound and about a parent who had a difficult relationship with money. How much? much of our money behaviour is inherited. So they say you form your money habits by the age of seven, and you definitely do. I am the exact same person as my dad, who was the one who had the issues growing up,

and I can feel it every single day. I'm fighting against that person, and I use techniques and rules and little things here and there to stop myself being that overspender. It's just ingrained into me. If you gave me a thousand pounds, I could walk out here. And I know in my head immediately, I could spend it in 10 seconds. I wouldn't even think about it as well. I have a really sort of detached relationship with money. And so I have to bring that attachment back and force myself to look at these things. But my partner is completely different. She's a saver. And she has the issue with actually being able to spend her money. So there's different types of individuals that come from different backgrounds and social economic groups as well. Everybody relates differently to money.

Really interestingly, you can also get like a saver or a risk taker from a completely opposite and adverse parent relationship as well. So it can form a different type of individual based on a scarcity mindset that is formed within money as well. So it is so interesting how the psychological relationship with money happens over a period of time. But yeah, this really rubbed off on me and I'm still sort of dealing with that on a day-to-day basis. While we're talking about shame and stigma, it also leads us to talk about something else about not talking about money and how this can also cater to abuse and exploitation. Economic abuse is when a partner controls your access to money to trap you, to keep you in the house, to stop you from growing anywhere.

Research by surviving economic abuse found it was present in more than half of the domestic abuse death reviews they analysed, 231 out of 454 cases. Meaning, in England and Wales, one person dies every 19 days in cases involving economic abuse. This summer, the same research group found that 36% of young women, age 16 to 24, had experienced economic abuse from a partner in the part of, year. One survivor told them nobody had ever explained to her what economic abuse was. Harleen, why are so many women in particular in our society vulnerable to this type of abuse? Yeah, I think it is the sort of age-old things, unfortunately, that we are still seeing. So abusers do exploit the gaps in financial independence, workplace opportunities, caregiving duties.

You know, women typically do have the burden of that sort of unpaid labour. So that we hear all the time about the gender pay gap. That very much still is a thing. As much as we don't like to think it is, it is still a thing because generally speaking, women over their lifetimes will hold fewer assets and earn less money compared to their partner, which does make them more reliant on their partner's income

or that shared income. And when you do become reliant on your partner's income, it gives you less flexibility. It gives you less options. As we mentioned, the caregiving responsibilities, we as women shoulder the majority of that unpaid child rearing and domestic labour. And that often leads to us as women

only really being able to do part-time work. We have to take career breaks for when we are pregnant. And that gives us that sort of lower earning potential. And the reality is that us as women, we do have a lack of financial literacy or awareness. Now, that is changing and we can see that changing in society. But for the most part, many people do not recognize financial control as abuse until it becomes actually severe. And that's because society has historically normalized couples pulling their money together or there been one dominant partner in terms of the budgeting and the financial control. So I think it's

a collection of things and it is difficult to tackle the issue from all of those angles. And it really is unfortunately something that women are still very much vulnerable to. Now it's not just abusers or scammers or lenders who benefit from silence around money. It's also employers, companies. And this isn't just from shame. This is from a culture. almost rules about not speaking about money. Specifically silence around salaries. In the EU, from this June, new rules mean that employers have to put salary ranges in job adverts and contracts can no longer ban workers from telling each other what they earn. But here in the UK, pay secrecy clauses are not banned. They're only enforceable if you're discussing pay to check

you're being equally paid. Sammy, who wins when we don't talk about. salaries? I have seen this from all sides. I'm an employer. In the past, I've employed hundreds of people from businesses that we've had. So I understand when someone comes and asks for a pay rise and you haven't got the budget necessarily available, what that employer must feel like. However, from an employee standpoint, I've personally been in situations where I'm underpaid versus someone who is on exactly the same level as me within an agency, right? negotiating, people are way better at negotiating certain terms within contracts than others. I always say this is like the most important 10 minutes of your entire life, but we get so

scared of it. And we walk into that meeting freeze when actually if we go in there with power and know exactly what we want and we're ready to negotiate and we understand our worth versus the industry and all of these types of things and can we squeeze an extra percent on our pension, can we get an extra day's holiday. Those are things that we can really pull into the negotiations. but I think salary and conversations around that should be much more open than they are in the UK. But as I say, I can see it from both sides of the coin having been there. I understand, you know, your point, and it's a really good point, should employers have that discretion to be able to reward certain competence,

as long as they're not rewarding whatever nepotism or certain like inherited characteristics? Yeah, there probably should. I mean, there should be that discretion. I do think that we know, however, that, you know, employers, especially big corporate employers, exploit the silence around salaries. And I suppose the solution isn't silence, right? It's conversation. And maybe that's awkward conversation. Maybe that sometimes I pay this person more because X, Y, Z, you know.

But it's a conversation that we need to get used to having because the alternative, the silence is so open to exploitation. Just to add to that point, I have been in that exact situation. Someone came to me, you're not paying me. the same as X, Y, and Z. And I say, well, quite frankly, they're smashing all of their KPIs and all the ones that we've set for you. You're not yet hit them. So there's a conversation to be had there. There is a competence thing. It's a very nuanced conversation, right? If it's just a blanket state on salary on title, then it's a very different conversation.

Coming up, we'll look at the people who rushed in to fill the gap that schools and newspapers left behind. Finfluencers, scammers and the Manusphere gurus selling young men a fantasy of wealth. But first, let's take a quick break. We make Chevrolet vehicles, but what you do with them makes them so much more. You make them mobile offices, your kids' personal taxi, a concert shuttle, your hockey equipment locker, your recording studio. We make a Chevrolet, but you make it a Chevy. Discover yours at Chevrolet.ca.

Welcome back to MediaStorm. Before the break, we talked about the money taboo and what it costs. Now let's look at who's been filling the silence. According to research by the FCA, 85% of 18 to 40-year-olds in the UK said social media was highly influential in informing their investment decisions. And almost two-thirds of 18-to-29-year-olds

follow Finfluences. Sammy, you're one of those Finfluences. Why do you think many young people trust creators on Instagram more than they trust, say, banks? I think it's a, it's a, a social relationship with that individual. The banks very much usually come out of this, or any sort of corporate organization usually comes out this with, this is our brand and this is the way that we speak and it must be like this and we're doing the robot, right?

And so people can see through that. And someone walks in and goes, hey, I've been in a situation before. Here's exactly what I did to get out of it and here's how you can do it too. Well, who's going to win in that situation, right? Because the person feels seen and they feel heard and they feel like they can relate to that individual. And so that's why, you know, I do the work that I do because I've been through this. I've made every mistake going. I still make the mistakes and I still openly talk about them.

And I think people can really relate to that. And people want to break out of that stigma, right? And here, mistakes are made and it's okay. But here's what the regulator is worried about. In April, the FCA led 17 regulators in a global crackdown on illegal finfluencing. In the UK, it found over 1,200 illegal financial adverts, which reached at least 2.3 million accounts. Two-thirds were from firms or people already on the FCA's warning list.

It secured a guilty plea from Aaron Chalmers of Jordy Shaw for illegally promoting financial products. Harleen, how widespread is this? And what are the red flags you'd tell? listeners to look out for? The reality is scams on social media in general are incredibly widespread and it is a huge problem with billions being lost globally every single year. And there is this crossover with influencers and scams that we're seeing happen with unqualified, unregulated individuals providing financial advice and using their flashy lifestyle to lead. legitimize that advice. So it is, without a doubt, a huge issue. The red flags are really clear on this.

Now, if an individual is guaranteeing returns, no legitimate investment can ever offer guaranteed returns because that's just not how it works. So if a creator promises a risk-free profit or guaranteed passive income, it's highly likely going to be a scam. If they use urgency or fomo, the fear of missing out to sort of play on your emotions. This is scammer tactics 101. So if they're using phrases like, don't miss out or act now, that should put some alarm bells ringing in our heads. If you are going on their profiles and they're using that sort of like lifestyle flexing, you know, where they've got the flashy cars, the big mansions, the Rolexes, the Staxie Cash, I know, Sammy, you're laughing. But those are red flags. And if they're using sort of like vague

strategies like secret algorithms or hidden loops. You know, that right, they are, if a creator refuses to explain why they've got this sort of inside knowledge and they're sort of redirecting you to buy in a course or whatever, again, these are just big red flags. And then finally, scammers will always try and move the conversation away from any sort of social media platform onto places like WhatsApp, onto places like Telegram, because that's where they're going to be able to operate without anybody pulling them up about that. You know, ultimately, one thing that we just need to remember is that in the UK, you need to be regulated

by the FCA to provide any sort of financial advice or any financial products. So if that person is not registered, or if they're acting on behalf of a company that is not registered, what they're doing is illegal and it cannot be trusted. And the way that we can do this is we can use the Financial Conduct Authority's website to reference that double check and cross-reference their name and or the company that they are being an agent for. Sammy, what are your thoughts on these financial illegal ads? And do you agree with Holleen's red flags? Absolutely, wholeheartedly. And I actively talk about this, right? I think it's really important. I'm trying to do good work. I'm not trying to provide advice. If someone messages,

me asking for personalized advice, straight away speak to these three, four IFAs, which I think are great or a bigger firm if that's what you want to go down the road. We do not provide advice. We provide everyday tactics and education based on public sourced information, which is served up in a way which someone can understand. There are two very, very different things. Unfortunately, for me, everyone gets called a finfluencer, and I personally absolutely cannot stand that word. I prefer to say, I financially educate people based on my own personal life experiences and I won't provide advice ever. So many of us are doing fantastic, fantastic work. But unfortunately, we are let down. I don't think that Geordie Shaw person is a thimploment

in any way. There are a celebrity that got wrapped up in a financial crime and decided to display it and utilise their audience to make themselves a fast buck. If it feels too good, the likelihood is that it is. Yeah, just to touch on that a bit more, Sammy, your brand up the gains is upfront that it earns commission through affiliate links when people sign up to products. You also founded your own app, the games app. Where do you draw your own lines so that the way you compensate yourself for your work doesn't clash with the integrity of your work? Thank you for saying that. I spent my whole life diving into apps looking whether or are they're any good for me, my audience and individuals, what their fees like. Have they got any good

reviews? Are they actually regulated, most importantly? And it's an opinion which I'm happy to give. And we will work as an affiliate partner with that brand if we feel like they are good for our audience. And that's a decision that we take and we care very deeply about it. And we actually get third parties to look at our work as well and judge us on whether or not we're making the right decision when we're talking about this. I think in this space we're in now, we, we, we have to talk about the Manusphere. There was this online course peddled by Andrew Tate, right? It charges a monthly subscription for courses on crypto trading, drop shipping and escaping the matrix. Members were reportedly encouraged to flood social media with his clips as part of an affiliate

scheme, which helped make him one of the most searched men in the world. Currently, Andrew Tate and his brother face criminal investigations, including a range of. of trafficking and sex offences in Romania and the UK. What's interesting is the pitch of this course. It's not just get rich, it's that being broke is emasculating. Ipsos polling found young men are about twice as likely as young women to say wealth is important for attracting a partner. And this year's student gambling survey found 51% of male students had invested in

crypto compared with 25% of female students. Sammy, you speak to a lot of young men, how much of the hustle content out there is really about money and how much is about other things like identity, status, loneliness. It is all of those things wrapped up into one and I think online social media culture has absolutely almost sort of lit a fire under a gasoline tank for that Because you can really, really pray on desperation, on shame, and you can pray on young men feeling completely disattached from society. And it's like a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. They spend more time on a screen to feel less alone.

They connect with these individuals which are praying on that, and George, and they get whirled around into this sphere of content and do this and act this way, and you will get to this thing which you so desire. It is maddening. I have a young nephew. He's 14. And the content, which comes up on his YouTube shorts feed, is absolutely, I cannot believe that it's even served to these kids. And it is such a damaging thing. But I think if parents can talk to their young boys and their young kids and the young girls about this sort of stuff as well and really educate and it's exactly saying

Manosphere money, wealth status, all of it needs to be encompassed from a young age. And we need to hand this stuff down to our kids so they don't grow up with this kind of mentality. Yeah, because it is in the playground where actually these ideas are born. Let's talk about how sophisticated the scams have become. Harleen, on Scam Clinic this year, you and Nick Stapleton set out to get scammed on purpose by an investment scam. What did you learn about how these operations work? These operations are incredibly convincing.

nine out of ten times they start on social media. They're normally advertised by a trusted voice. It'll be some sort of celebrity or a consumer expert. And they'll normally advertise a product. And when you click through, it'll take you to actually a different website that has all those red flags that we spoke about, the guaranteed returns, the urgency. And normally that website will look incredibly slick.

It will have wonderful branding. Obviously, AI is helping. with that now. And the dashboard itself, they'll have a dashboard like you would have on a legitimate trading platform. And it does look incredibly legitimate, but it's just not. Now, with this type of scam, the scammers are playing the long con. They'll take their time with you. They'll get to know you as much as they can. They'll build that rapport with you. They'll then start using belittling tactics to make you doubt your own knowledge. And they'll make you start with small investments so that you can become convinced by the scam. And they will actually provide

you with real returns that you can take out so that it just helps to convince you that, oh, this is something that's legitimate that I am doing. And it'll allow you to then plow the larger sums of money, which is what they are after. But when it comes down to it, you will not be able to pull the money out of that platform. They'll use tactics if you question them and they will redirect your concerns by distracting you with another type of investment that will provide even bigger returns. They are absolute master manipulators. And I just think that if you find yourself in the position speaking to one of these people, do not hand over any personal information of yourself. Do not hand over your financial information. And honestly, don't look to social media

for your investments. Just don't do that because I think you're going to find yourself in hot water if you do. There's a question here about accountability, right? Because we've talked a lot about these individual scammers, finfluences, these master manipulators. But there is someone else profiting from the content here

and that is the social media platform. Holine, your Channel 4 documentary tested whether Facebook was doing enough to stop fake rental adverts. what did you find? I found, in a nutshell, no, they're not doing enough. If you want to know a little bit more about Facebook's attitude towards these things, I highly recommend you go read Sarah Wyn Williams Careless People because it will give you a very clear idea of how Facebook approach these types of things.

They are completely money-motivated. And it is as clear as that they are not. doing enough. Billions of scam ads and organic posts run daily on Meta's platform. And investigations indicate that the company continues to generate substantial revenue from fraudulent or high-risk advertising. So there is a massive conflict of interest. They have moderators in place, but they don't have enough moderators. And there's not the real incentive for them to put more moderators in place. And they do. And they do. do target vulnerable groups with their ads.

It has been shown that their behaviour is predatory. Let's now turn the lens onto our own industry. In two weeks, John Healy delivers his first budget, and I want to take you through what's on the Telegraph's Money Pages. Three ways the Renters Rights Act has backfired and what it means for landlords. Mansion tax wipes 258K. off homes over 2 million. How do I stop my 900,000 pound pension becoming an inheritance tax nightmare?

Obviously, the Telegraph caters to a particularly wealthy audience. But across outlets, stories about debt, benefits and poverty tend to live in a different part of the paper, and they're also told in a much different tone. Personal finance for the comfortable is sold as smart planning. Money problems for the poor as moral failures. Halene, historically, whose money worries do you think the media has been set up to serve? And are you a sign that this may be changing or improving? Mainstream media structures have overwhelmingly been set up to serve the money interests of the wealthy elites, the corporate conglomerates and advertisers.

UK national print and news is heavily concentrated with just three companies. owning and controlling 90% of national newspaper circulation and over 40% of the top online news brands. So I think it's very clear whose money interests have been served historically. Now, I know the BBC has come under a lot of fire recently and it has had some very controversial issues going on within the organisation, but they do have a duty to the public, which is why we do see public service broadcasting with the likes of things like scam interceptors. And yes, I would like to think that things are changing. And with the rise of the internet and the access to information, we are seeing a sort of change in the tides, but we do still need to recognise

that the mainstream media outlets are owned by a very select elite few. And we just need to make sure we're taking sometimes that information with a pinch of salt. This really reminds me of an episode of Media Storm's Newswatch we did. I think it was back at the end of 2024. And it was about this story from the Times, which read that sick fluences help followers claim benefits as 15,000 a week approved. And it was about how, and I quote, their social media influence advised followers held to maximize benefits claim. And at the time, we pointed out, like, why do we praise people, like, for example, Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, for telling us how to save money on our household bills, but we cast doubt and we cast

scorn and judgment on people with disabilities and people who are ill for doing literally the same thing. And there were so many articles at this time in the Times, advising people how to get more money out of the system, because all of their articles, were about how to avoid tax more effectively. And it's the same thing. So shouldn't we also be asking if that is, and another quote from that article, gaming the system.

There is, you know, a massive class agenda playing out in the media. I think you do see that hugely in benefits coverage. And I'm not saying that no one should ever be critically analyzing the benefit system, but it's about proportionality. And the disproportionality of coverage is a real giveaway about the money agenda behind the media. Media research shows that roughly 29 to 35%, so a third of welfare-related news stories, focus specifically on fraud, cheats or scroungers. This is despite official Department for Work and Pensions, you know, government estimates that benefit fraud accounts

for only about 2.2% of total welfare expenditure. Meanwhile, policy and practice estimates that 24 billion pounds of benefits actually go unclaimed each year. And one of the main reasons for that is the stigma, which is likely perpetuated by this disproportionate amount of scrounger headlines. Media Storm always asks, where are the missing voices in the mainstream media coverage? Harleen, who do you think is missing from the coverage? What voices, what stories would you like to see more of in the mainstream? media's money pages. It's the everyday person, isn't it? It's all of us. We need to hear more about

what's going on generally. I want to hear more about marginalized people in a positive light, because ultimately, as has been previously mentioned, all we really hear about when we hear about disabled, when we hear about migrants, is we're hearing about them in a very negative way. So these are the voices that I want to hear about. a positive way. And ultimately, if we can just bring a little bit more balance so that we don't have the shame, so that people can get control of their finances, and we can have an economy that prospers, because right now, our economy is in such a difficult state. And we cannot thrive as a country without the people individually thriving. Well, finally, let's end on solutions.

education is due to be strengthened in schools in England, including at a primary level for the first time. Sammy, you've campaigned for this. If you could write that curriculum, what's the one thing every 16-year-old should leave school knowing? Profit and loss and credit, I think, is the number one aspect of this. It's ingrained into your life. Shoe loans, mortgages, credit cards, and all of them can be very good, but they can also be very bad. And so, we kind of get put into society with absolutely zero knowledge of debt and basic profit and loss. Your income is £2,000. You spend £1,800, you have a £200, you have a gap there, right?

If you spend £2,200 because you put £200 on a credit card, you're in the negative, right? We don't know this stuff, even though we do no basic mass and subtraction and Pythagoras theorem gets thrown at us. I can't remember the last time I used that. So it's everyday life circumstances. This is how a mortgage works when you purchase a home, because if I turn around to someone and I said, how much you buy your house for? They tell me the exact amount they paid. And that's not true because it's probably double on interest, right?

So, or near around that amount. And that's the amount that actually should be ingrained in our heads. But we don't think like that. We've bred a consumerism culture society. We go out, spend, spend, spend money. And it's not been about accumulating and looking at financial decisions and basic compound interest. every single person, even age 14, that I show a compound interest calculated to.

Their mind goes, how is that even possible? Because we're teaching everybody how to get a job, but we're not telling them what they do with the money when they get it. And it's just that it is absolutely mind-blowing. So thankfully, this is happening. I do have my reservations on how it will be delivered, simply because the teachers themselves require deep financial education themselves to be able to deliver it confidently to these children, which is going to require, as I sat in the Labour Committee,

and told them hundreds of millions of pounds to get it up to a standard which is going to be worthy. However, baby steps, let's get there and let's get this train going and let's improve it over the years to come. But yeah, it's fantastic. I'm so happy that we're here at this point. When I first got into this space, this wasn't even on the table. So, yeah, we're starting to win and it's good to see. Such a worthwhile thing to have been campaigning for financial education. And Harleen, Talk Money Week, starts on the second. of November. So listeners, you have a duty to get chatting about money in that week. What's one money conversation you challenge our listeners to have this week with a partner, a parent, a colleague,

a friend, whoever? If I may, I want to advise two conversations. I'm so sorry, I know you're saying one, but I'm advising too. So the first one would have to be around scams, whether or not you have been scammed, what that process looked like for you, what are the scams that you are seeing online? Because as we spoke about, the stigma that is involved, the shame that is involved, the only way we're going to overcome that is by having these conversations more regularly and breaking away from that. And one piece of advice I would always recommend for anybody, particularly if you have any elderly loved ones, is to set up a scam buddy. Now, this is somebody that you can have on your speed dial that you can call.

If you have got any worries, whatever it is, phone that person up and say, I've come across X, Y and Z, and they can give you a sense check. And the second conversation, I have to say, is for our women out there, I want us to be talking more about investments, I want us to be talking more about trading,

because that is ultimately the only way that we ourselves are going to become financially independent is by having more of these conversations. you find this very, as we've spoken about, in male-dominated circles. But when it comes to female-dominated circles, we don't speak about it as much. So if you're a woman, get out there, educate yourself about investments, educate yourself about financial literacy, and go and have that conversation with other women in your life. Helena, will you be my scam buddy?

Absolutely. I'm just going to say, can I call you, Holly, when there's a problem. You've caught me any time, Sammy. Sorry, Zach Helena. Holly and you be my scam buddy. Sammy Ella King, Harleen Notte, thank you both so much for joining us on Media Storm. Where can people follow you and do you have anything to plug?

We'll start with you, Harleen. You can follow me predominantly on Instagram. It's at Harleen Naughty. Notty spelled N-O-T-A-Y, not the naughty way. And we've got the new series of scam interceptors that is going to be coming out in November. So please do look out for that. to find clips on YouTube and also on BBC Eye Player.

If you haven't already listened to Scam Clinic, please, please do. We dive deeply into investment scams and you see the tactics firsthand and you get to hear the scammer firsthand. It's very, very interesting. And also, if you're interested in business, generally speaking, please do go listen to BBC Asia Networks' Every Day Hustle.

You will find that on BBC Sounds. And Sammy, where can people follow you? And do you have anything to plug? Yeah, I just want to say, by the way, that Hylene is awesome in this space and so definitely go and check these out because actually listen to some of those scound calls is mad, actually mad,

like seeing how they manipulate people, they just sound like an everyday person from the bank or whatever. It's nuts, so definitely go and check that out. For our side, up the Gaines money on all social channels, come check us out. And we have Gaines app as well, which is a everyday money management,

budgeting and cash back app, allowing you to sort of see what's going on across multiple banks. My mum downloaded it and goes, I spent £3,000 in M&S last month. I said, yes, well, you do get addicted to the cookies and everything in the aisles too much, right? So she's like, wow, but just seeing that now, she's now put those things in place. So it can really help.

And so, yeah, come check us out. It's called Gaines App, and it's totally free to download. And yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's been a real pleasure. They are the best cookies. They are so good. If anything in today's episode has affected you and you're worried about economic abuse. You can call the National Domestic Abuse Helpline,

by Refuge for free on 0808, 20247. If you think you've been scanned, contact your bank straight away using the number on the back of your card and report it to action fraud. And you can check what benefits you might be entitled to using a free benefits calculator linked in our show notes. Thank you for listening. Next week, we're away, but we're back the following week with a deep dive into male fertility. And then, the week after, all you need to know, know about the U.S. midterms as Trump's America faces its first democratic test. But democracy itself may be the thing being tested. If you want to support Media Storm, you can do so on Patreon for less than a cup of coffee a

month. The link is in the show notes and a special shout out to everyone in our Patreon community already. We appreciate you so much. If you enjoyed this episode, please send it to someone. Word of mouth is still the best way to grow a podcast, so please do tell your friends. and obviously leave us a five-star rating and a review. You can follow us on social media at Matilda Mal at Helena Wadia and follow the show at MediaStorm Pod. MediaStorm is an award-winning podcast produced by Helena Wadia and Matilda Mallinson.

It was edited by Christy Calloway Gale. The music is by Samfire.